A young woman who says she was initially barred from the Flin Flon General Hospital after being viciously pepper-sprayed wants answers.
The woman, 19, said she and two female friends, ages 17 and 18, were forced to wait on the hospital vehicle ramp, where they eventually disrobed and donned patient gowns, before being given a chance to enter the building.
“They didn’t say an explanation. They just said, ‘You can’t come in,’” the woman, who requested that her name not be published for privacy reasons, told The Reminder.
“[We] couldn’t see. We had to be led anywhere we were going. We all thought we were dying. We thought our skin was peeling off. We were freaking out. We were screaming the entire time and going to a hospital and being told you’re not allowed in, with no explanation, was just kind of like a confirmation that we were dying. So we just freaked out more. So we all were just convinced that we were pretty much infected with something and that we were all going to die.”
The woman said the incident occurred on Tuesday, August 11 and early Wednesday, August 12, after an assailant randomly pepper-sprayed them as they left Denare Beach’s Main Beach.
She said one of the young women’s relatives gave them a ride to the hospital, where they arrived at about midnight.
“When we got there, we were outside for about five minutes and they refused to help us and they pretty much said, ‘You can’t come inside,’” said the woman, a local resident. “And we were outside for about five minutes, screaming with our eyes burning because we all thought we were dying because nobody told us what [they had been sprayed with.]”
She said the police arrived on scene and an officer was allowed into the hospital. He returned to the ramp with eyewash bottles and helped the women wash out their eyes.
“He said that the doctor barely gave [the bottles] to him because they got in a tiff because [the officer] didn’t want to listen to [the doctor’s] explanation because he just wanted to help us,” the woman said.
She said the women ran out of eyewash bottles about 40 minutes after their arrival. Relatives of one of the women who happened to be at the hospital then emerged with more bottles, she said.
The woman said her sister went inside the hospital, where she was given patient gowns and told to inform the three young women they would need to change out of their clothes.
“So we had to strip naked on the ramp,” she said.
After further intervention on her behalf, the woman said she was allowed into the hospital and taken to the top floor for a shower. She then received medication.
When she left the hospital, the woman said her two friends had already gone home, as they did not want to wait any longer just to take a shower.
Twyla Storey, communications coordinator for the Northern Health Region (NHR), could not confirm details of the incident, citing rules around personal health information.
“However, a protocol for individuals being sprayed by a substance such as pepper or bear spray are subject to a protocol to ensure protection of staff and patients within the ER department and potentially throughout the hospital,” she said. “That protocol includes keeping the patient outside of the ER pending decontamination. The last time we recall it being implemented was 2011, so this is not an everyday occurrence.”
Storey said the Flin Flon ER lacks a decontamination area, so treatment of these types of patients must take place outside the facility.
She said treatment typically consists of flushing affected areas with cool water for 15 minutes, removing affected clothing, washing affected areas with soap and water, and going into well-ventilated areas.
The Reminder spoke with the young woman’s father, who said the family has filed a formal complaint.
Storey said that as with all complaints, the matter will be reviewed and the NHR will respond through that process.
She added that the new Flin Flon ER set for construction will include a decontamination area so initial treatment for these types of incidents can occur within the facility.
As for the pepper-spray assault itself, the woman said she and her two friends were getting into their car near the Main Beach at about 11:30 pm when a teenage boy pulled open a door.
“I tried to shut it, but he just kept yanking it open,” she said, adding that he then forced his hand in and sprayed them in the face with the substance.
“I had to take my seatbelt off and literally lunge at him before he started running away, so he ran down the road and we were all blind, so we couldn’t follow him or anything.”
The women did not know what had been sprayed at them, but based on conversations with the RCMP they believe it was possibly bear spray, a type of pepper spray meant to deter bears.
RCMP have arrested a suspect in the assault. The 15-year-old male faces three counts of assault with a weapon and one count each of robbery, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and possession of a prohibited weapon.
Sgt. Mark Svaren of the Creighton RCMP could not confirm that bear spray was involved, but said it was some type of pepper spray, considered a prohibited weapon.
